Pauline Camacho

Pauline Camacho said she never expected Sgambelluri's tenure as superintendent to be so short.

Camacho is the director of the Guam Parent Information Resource Center and immediate past president of Agana Heights Elementary School's Parent Teacher Organization.

"It's unfortunate that this happened.We are pretty much back to square one now, but it's understandable.A person must take care of their health first," she said.

Camacho said she saw promise in Sgambelluri's vision for public schools.She felt GPSS employees and the general public saw the same.

"It was all so exciting," she said."However, the whole feeling I had when I heard the news was 'all that for nothing.' It's all null.It's all void."

Camacho said the school board should try to expedite hiring so GPSS isn't leaderless during the summer, when many improvement projects are scheduled.Instead of restarting the entire hiring process, she felt the school board should re-interview its top three remaining applicants.

She said GPSS could find a quality superintendent in the pool it already interviewed and that the search didn't need to take another month.

Back row, from left: Pauline Camacho, PTO immediate past president; Cynthia Sablan, PTO vice president; Jeremiah Blas; Tayler Perez; Javin Velez; Nicholas Nadeau (partially hidden); Samuel Tom; Serryan Sablan; Angelica Unpingco (hidden); and Talia Palomo, GATE students; Rebecca Perez, school vice principal; Rosemary Clement, GATE teacher; and Dave Taitano, PTO president.

Back row, from left: Pauline Camacho, PTO immediate past president; Cynthia Sablan, PTO vice president; GATE students Jeremiah Blas, Tayler Perez, Javin Velez, Nicholas Nadeau (partially hidden), Samuel Tom, Serryan Sablan, Angelica Unpingco (hidden), and Talia Palomo; Rebecca Perez, school vice principal; Rosemary Clement, GATE teacher; and Dave Taitano, PTO president.

"Money is always a solution to the problems we're looking at now," said Pauline Camacho, president of the Agana Heights Elementary School Parent Teacher Association.

Camacho said her school is lucky in the sense that it receives plenty of community support.Camacho said many parents and teachers, along with the Agana Heights mayor's office, volunteers from the military and the Department of Corrections, have been able to keep the school fairly clean.

But volunteers can do only so much, Camacho said, adding that many of the problems cited by Public Health need the DOE administration's attention.

"Or do we parents have to go out and hire an exterminator, also?"Camacho said with some frustration.

Pauline Camacho, president of the school's parent-teacher association, said "doing whatever you can to help" is really the best help a school can get.

"Everyone is doing a little bit of something, and when you add it all up, it's a huge collaborative effort," Camacho said.

This is a short but very sincere tribute to the Agana Heights PTO under the direction of its past president Pauline Camacho, Mayor Paul McDonald, plus his staff members and the Department of Corrections, along with its director, Robert Camacho for all of the assistance they have given Agana Heights Elementary School during the past three years.